Celebrating our elderly relatives

1.  What's your favorite holiday song?

"Silver Bells"

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks
Dressed in holiday style
In the air there's a feeling of Christmas
Children laughing, people passing
Meeting smile after smile
And on every street corner you'll hear

Silver bells, silver bells
It's Christmas time in the city
Ring-a-ling, hear them ring
Soon it will be Christmas day

2.  What's your favorite holiday tradition?

Whichever child had learned during the year about the Santa tradition got to fill stockings that year.  We did it when I was a child, when my children were growing up, and once more — when my "baby" brother, who had no younger siblings, spent Christmas eve at my house and filled the stockings for our three children.  I'll tell you "the rest of the story" on Christmas Eve.  Mark your calendar to return to my blog for that special story.

3.  If you could travel one place with an elderly family member where would you go?

My first thought was to "go back in time," because I'd like to be with the ones who were my elders.  Just yesterday I realized that, as the oldest child, I am now the oldest member of my birth family.  Our parents and their generation are all gone.  The "elderly family members" in my family are all younger than I am.  Okay, I'll pick one of them — my mother's mother, Inez, who died when I was only three.  Yes, I do remember her, but only as a sick person whose bedside table was filled with pill bottles.  I'd go with her to our old family home in Chattanooga.

4.  What questions would you ask?

I would ask my Grandmother Inez to  "tell me what it was like when you were growing up."  Her mother died when she was six, but I want to know about life in the 1880s.  I would ask her to tell me about the flowers she planted at the house where my mother — and I myself — grew up.  She planned those flowers to bloom almost year round.  I especially remember the sweet smell of hyacinths near my sandbox in the backyard and the rock garden near the corner of the house.

5.  What is a non-tangible gift have you received from an elderly relative?

Although Grandmother Inez died when I was very little, she left me a gift that came through my mother — by way of a story.  One day my mother, then about twelve, was helping serve refreshments to the ladies of the church, meeting at their house.  The women started complaining about the new preacher, and my grandmother clapped her hands loudly (greatly embarrassing my mother) and said something like, "Now ladies, we're going to have him for a year, so we might as well get used to it."  (Methodist ministers are appointed for a year at a time.)  The women began finding good things to say about him.  Mother and I both learned from her mother that one person can make a difference.

6.  What is the best/worst/strangest gift you've received from an elderly relative?

My other grandmother, Gladys, gave me a Bible when I was four.  In the notes at the back, she X'd out one section about the coming of the Kingdom of God.  She believed the church (her church) was the kingdom.

NOTE:  This is a meme dreamed up by Tricia Goyer, to advertise her latest book:  Remembering You.  It's a story about a girl and her grandpa, so she wants "to give a shout-out to our elderly relatives this holiday."  Hmm, I am one of the elderly relatives.  I tag all of you to answer these questions and add your name to the linky on Tricia Goyer's blog.  You'll have a chance to win one of the ten 4-book prize packs on December 22.  You can have the four books sent to yourself or to a friend.

Bonnie's request:  If you do this meme, please come back and tell me so I can come read your answers.